


Walk Away (To Be The One)

by escritoireazul



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-01
Updated: 2007-07-01
Packaged: 2017-11-14 14:09:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/516046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/pseuds/escritoireazul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someday, Buffy will get to walk away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk Away (To Be The One)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for: carlyinrome for the first annual oldschoolbtvs No School Like the Old School ficathon.  
> Timeline: During and after "Graduation Day"

I.

“Why are you so selfish, Buffy?” 

All Buffy wanted was a break, time away from everyone all buzzing and terrified. She should have known she couldn’t have one minute’s peace, not even at the possible end of the world.

Especially not at the possible end of the world.

She sighed, and rolled her head to ease the tension in the back of her neck, and then, finally, turned to face Cordelia.

“Did you want something?”

Cordelia went on like she had never stopped speaking, like Buffy hadn’t said anything, like all she could hear was the prattle of her own voice, her own worries, whatever they were. “It’s all about you, you, you, isn’t it? Whatever Buffy wants, Buffy gets, even if it’s bad for everyone else.”

“What are you talking about?” She crossed her arms over her chest. The skin above her eye twitched, involuntarily, and she curled her fingers to keep from touching it, from drawing attention to it, to the shadows above her cheeks, to the bone-deep exhaustion. She needed rest.

She always, always needed more rest.

“Wesley, of course! He tries so hard to be a good Watcher and you just ruin him. You’re a ruiner, Buffy Summers!”

“Why is your mouth still moving?” There was no heat to her words, no strength; Buffy’s body felt fluid, her muscles weak, the trickle of a once mighty stream. She saw the things she loved most – the man she loved most – washed away from her, taken out to sea.

Her world wouldn’t end with fire or with ice but in the water, in the briny deep.

She lost too much blood; her thoughts were scattered, uncontrollable. She was in no shape to save the world again. She didn’t have a choice.

Cordelia cocked one hip and put her hand on it. “Look, all I’m saying is you could have given the guy a chance. He’s attractive. He dresses well. He’s smart. Why must you run him off?”

“This really isn’t a good time, Cordelia. I’m tired, I’m sore from saving Angel’s life, and, oh yeah, I still have an apocalypse to avert! Can we maybe do this after I save the world? Again?”

“Wesley will be gone by then!”

“I don’t care!”

“That’s what I just said. You don’t care about _anyone_ but yourself.”

“Cordelia.” Buffy closed her eyes. She really wished she didn’t have personal rules about using Slayer strength against humans because it would feel so good to hit Cordelia right about then. She could picture it, the sound of hand to skin and the way her fragile flesh would bruise. Cordelia wasn’t like Faith, she wasn’t Slayer strong with Slayer healing, and Buffy made Faith bleed, she could smack the obnoxious right out of Cordelia.

She did not like herself very much right then.

“Buffy,” Cordelia mocked.

“God, can’t you just – go away?” Buffy walked out of the stacks, walked away before she did something she would regret.

II.

The nights were already warm; summer pushed in close. In the aftermath of graduation, simple vampire slaying was a relief. It left her alone with her thoughts too much, and she could see Angel everywhere, like the dots after a camera flash, the echo of him all around her, but still, compared to leading an army of graduating seniors against a giant snake, it was almost a vacation. Almost.

Cordelia was a welcome distraction, though she would never admit it.

“Don’t you have something else to be doing? Shopping? Paying someone to wash your car? Sitting at home and mourning Wesley’s return to England, maybe? Anything besides bugging me?”

“No.” Cordelia smoothed her skirt, though it was already unwrinkled and perfect, in sharp contrast to Buffy. “It’s okay that he’s gone.”

“Wait.” Buffy blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and glanced sideways at Cordelia. “I thought you were all broken hearted and mad at me because I couldn’t see the good side of him and didn’t give him a chance and bla bla bla.”

“Well, I was.” Cordelia perched on the top of a tombstone and examined her nails. “But it turns out he was a bad kisser.”

“A bad – kisser?”

“Yeah. Must be that British repression at work. Such a shame, too.”

“Sure.” 

“It was. All that attraction and then – nothing. It fizzled away. Unfortunate.”

“Huh. You know, Cordelia, it’s not that I mind your company or anything – actually, yeah, it’s completely that – but why are you telling me this? For that matter, why are you here?”

Cordelia lifted her shoulders in a languid shrug. “I thought, perhaps, you were ready to bring your wardrobe out of high school hell. You know, since we graduated and all. More or less.”

Buffy blinked. “Are you saying you want to give me a make-over? Tonight? In the middle of a cemetery?”

“No.” She laughed. “Don’t be an idiot. I want to give you a make-over in the daylight, in a store. Somewhere far from here, of course, because I can’t be seen you with you, even if I am doing charity work here. How about L.A.?”

It felt like a stake to the chest. It wasn’t fair, Angel ruined Sunnydale for her by leaving and ruined L.A. by arriving. It really, really wasn’t fair. “No! No L.A. I don’t go there.”

“Okay.” Cordelia made a derisive little noise and crossed one leg over the other. “Gee, Buffy, I didn’t realize you were suddenly afraid of the city.”

“I’m not afraid!” Buffy started to say more, probably would have opened her mouth and given all her secrets away, but just then she looked past Cordelia, right into a fanged face. “Cordy, get down!”

There wasn’t time to be graceful; she grabbed Cordelia’s arm and jerked her forward, over Buffy’s hip and to the ground. The vamp grinned and lunged, his second mistake (the first, of course, was taking on the Slayer, and you’d think, after awhile, they would learn. Except they never did, and Buffy was actually kind of happy about it right then, because she really wanted something to hit).

Buffy dodged to the side and let his momentum carry him into her knee. She felt something in his chest crack, probably a couple ribs, and knocked him backward. He hit the ground flat on his back, but rolled legs over head to his feet again.

“Sure are a lot of acrobatic vamps,” Buffy huffed. “What, did someone turn the whole gymnastics team?”

“Karate,” the vamp snapped. His anger wasn’t very effective when he was clutching both hands to his chest. “Gymnastics is for girls.”

“Oh, great, another girl hater. Do you guys have a club or something?” She rolled her eyes and landed a kick against the side of his knee. It snapped with a pop and he hit the ground, but was up again almost immediately. Ignoring the pain, or maybe he just healed super fast. Whatever, she didn’t care, beating the shit out of him wasn’t nearly as fun as she had hoped.

He feinted to the side, but she read his real plan in the tension in his body and met his actual attack with a palm to his chin, snapping back his head, and then, easy as anything, a stake into his heart.

She even managed to step back so she didn’t ruin another outfit with vamp dust. So far, it was a successful night.

“God, Buffy, look what you did to my shoes?”

Maybe not so successful.

“Did you miss the part where I just saved your life?”

Even Cordelia’s crouch was classy, smooth lines, and pure sex when she ran her fingers over the leather strap of her shoe. “You scuffed it.” She made a face, and then, quieter, more to herself, “I hate wearing scuffed shoes.”

“And _I’m_ the selfish one?” Buffy shoved the stake back into her pants and put her hands on her hips. “God, Cordelia, you really are a piece of work.”

“And you’re a violent juvenile delinquent who just wishes she could be normal like me.”

“Why are you so obnoxious? Why are you here, being obnoxious to me? Haven’t I paid my dues yet? Can’t I catch a break? I’m here, I’m slaying, what more does the universe want?”

“Possibly for you to look a little less K-Mart, maybe? You’ve got to be giving Slayers a bad name in that outfit.”

Buffy squeezed her hands into fists, tight so her nails dug into her palms. “Cordelia?”

“Yes?” Cordelia straightened and smoothed her outfit, which needed it, but even after her fall she still looked clean and cool and calm.

Buffy hated her for it.

“Shut up.”

“Excuse me?” Her eyes narrowed.

“You heard me.”

“Look, Buffy, I know you think you’re hot stuff, but -- ”

“I said shut up.” She reached for her, too fast for someone _normal_ to avoid. For a second, she thought she might actually, finally, hit her.

Then Buffy Summers kissed Cordelia Chase in the middle of a cemetery.

III.

It was so good with Cordelia, and so bad, too, because it was good. Cordelia always whined when Buffy tangled her hair, and mocked everything about Buffy’s clothes and make-up and bedroom. (They never, ever went to Cordelia’s house. Buffy didn’t ask why.)

The sun slanted through her window, painted stripes across the floor and the bed and their skin, and Buffy did all the things she’d thought about doing before, all the smacks and the shoving and the physical retaliation for every petty little thing Cordelia had ever said.

Except she didn’t do them hard enough to damage, and they (usually) both came after. During. Beginning middle and end. Multiple times and places and, for Buffy, Sunnydale took on the taste and scent of Cordelia, washing the fresh bruise of Angel away, if not the memories. 

It wasn’t love. It wasn’t even happiness, most of the time, though she really liked the way she left handprints on Cordelia’s ass, and the way Cordelia’s body arched and bucked when she slammed her fingers inside, and the way she could always, always make her scream.

It was distraction, and connection, and that was enough.

That was almost too much, in the end.

They were in a cemetery again, Buffy slammed her up against a mausoleum wall and finger fucked her into the closest thing Cordelia had to silence. She didn’t want her to stop speaking, anyway; somehow, for some reason, she could always get into Buffy’s head and drive her crazy. The frustration, Buffy realized, was part of her appeal, and she craved the little moments when Cordelia snarked at her, taunted her, made her feel.

She staked the vampires who caught them out, and then turned back, ready to take care of her own need, the ache between her thighs.

Cordelia stood in the moonlight, magazine perfect right down to her freshly applied lipstick.

“I’m leaving, Buffy. You won’t catch me stuck in this town forever.” The ‘not like you’ was unstated, but Buffy could hear it anyway, the words in her head, all the reasons she had to stay in Sunnydale, give up the rest of her future, fight for all the time she had left.

She could have smacked her, across the mouth, or turned her over one of the headstones, shoved up her skirt, and beat her ass. Neither was something new. Neither would make her feel better.

Buffy actually had a comeback, maybe two or three, even, but she swallowed them down. Instead she put away her stake, smoothed her hair out of her face, and walked away. For once, finally, she was the one who walked away.

She could hear Cordelia, behind her; her high heels tapped twice when she reached the sidewalk, and then the sound stopped, for a minute.

For once, finally, she was being watched as she walked away.


End file.
